


til the stars fall out of the sky

by mischief7manager



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-16 14:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12344445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischief7manager/pseuds/mischief7manager
Summary: "When Keyleth is twelve, she finds a baby greenfinch fallen from its nest when she’s playing in the woods outside the village. It’s a tiny puffball of a thing, chirping faintly and flapping the little fuzzy nubs that have yet to grow into wings. She looks for a full hour for its nest and its mother, and when she can’t find either, she tucks it carefully into her pocket and takes it home."Keyleth sees a lot of death in her very long life. Each time, it seems, she sees something different.





	til the stars fall out of the sky

**Author's Note:**

> this started as a tumblr prompt and got Massively out of control, but i wanted to have something to publish for the finale, so here it is. spoilers for episode 114.

“And for all her wisdom and lineage she could not forbear to plead with him to stay yet for a while. She was not yet weary of her days, and thus she tasted the bitterness of the mortality that she had taken upon her.”

- _The Lord of the Rings_ , by J.R.R. Tolkien, Appendix A: “The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen”

 

* * *

 

When Keyleth is twelve, she finds a baby greenfinch fallen from its nest when she’s playing in the woods outside the village. It’s a tiny puffball of a thing, chirping faintly and flapping the little fuzzy nubs that have yet to grow into wings. She looks for a full hour for its nest and its mother, and when she can’t find either, she tucks it carefully into her pocket and takes it home.

It lasts for about a week in the makeshift nest under her bed. She feeds it worms from the garden, though she doesn’t go so far as pre-chewing them ( _yuck_ ), and she takes it out from the nest to help it stretch its wings. Keyleth doesn’t really know how to take care of a baby bird, but she’s been helping her dad out in the healer’s compound sometimes, so she knows a little about what things need to live.

She’s lying on the floor with her head stuck under the bed to check on it when her dad knocks on her open bedroom door. “Keyleth?”

She jumps, then yelps as her head knocks into the bedframe. She scrabbles out from under it to find her father leaning against the doorframe, eyebrows raised. “...hi, Daddy,” she says, rubbing the back of her head.

Her dad sighs. “Keyleth. What are you doing.”

Keyleth gulps. “I was just- I wanted to-” She reaches underneath the bed and pulls out the nest she made out of scraps of cloth and grass. “I think she’s sick.”

Dad comes to sit on the bed. “Can I see?”

As gently as she knows how, Keyleth lifts the bird out and hands her over. She’s not moving hardly at all anymore, and Keyleth bites her lip. “Is she sick? I’ve been feeding her and stuff, she was doing okay for a while, but-”

“She’s not sick, sweetie.” Dad sighs, and pulls Keyleth up to sit next to him on the bed. “She’s dying.”

“What?” It’s so incomprehensible to Keyleth, at that age. “But I was taking care of her! I gave her food, and water, and I made sure to keep her warm, and-”

“I’m sure you did everything you could, Keyleth,” Dad says. He cups the bird in one hand so he can wrap the other arm around Keyleth and tug her against his side. “But sometimes…” He sighs, squeezing her shoulder. “Even if you try really hard, some things are just too weak to survive. Sometimes things just die.”

Keyleth peers at the baby cradled in her dad’s palm. “Can’t we do anything?”

Dad kisses the top of her head. “We can keep her warm and comfortable until she passes. Sometimes that’s all you can do.”

The baby bird draws its last breath a few hours later. Keyleth and her father bury it in their backyard, under the tree Keyleth likes to climb on sunny days. At her prompting, Dad says some words, things he says he’s said at farewells for people in the village. There haven’t been many of those since he stepped up as Headmaster, so he stumbles over the words a few times, but Keyleth doesn’t mind.

When he’s done, he goes back into the house to get supper ready, but Keyleth sits with her back against the tree for a little while longer. _Next time, I’ll do more_ , she promises herself, the little mound of fresh earth at her feet. _I’ll do better._

 

* * *

 

When Keyleth is twenty-four, she makes camp in a wooded hollow at the base of the Summit Peaks. She’s one week into her AraMente, and so far she feels like it’s going good. She’s made her way down from Zephrah fairly easily, and she’s been able to hunt and forage for food with enough ease to keep her belly full. At the moment, her plan is to make her way towards Stillben, the nearest town, but she’s not in any hurry. It’s fun, being on her own, not having anyone to answer to but herself. A little lonely, maybe, but with all the woods and wilds around her, that’s easy enough to ignore. Really. It’s nice.

She’s still talking herself into how nice it is when three men appear from the shadows around her campfire.

“Right, now,” the one in front of her says, grin splitting through a ragged beard, “no trouble, now, girl.” Keyleth’s head whips around frantically, looking for an escape, and finds none. The man chuckles. “No trouble. Just hand over your coin and your jewels and we’ll be on our way.”

“I don’t-” Keyleth’s voice cracks. Her throat is suddenly unbearably dry. “I don’t have any coin.”

The one to her left laughs. “Fair enough. That crown what you’ve got on, though. We’d get a pretty penny for it, I’ll wager.”

Keyleth’s hand flies to her headdress. “This- no, no, it’s just antlers and- it’s not worth anything!”

The first one steps closer. “I’ll be the judge of that, girl.”

Keyleth’s eyes begin to well. “No, please, you don’t understand, it was my mother’s- _Please_ -”

“Oh don’t worry,” he says, already reaching for her head. “We’ll take good care of it.”

His fingers close roughly around one of the antlers, and Keyleth panics.

She shoves him away, and she feels her nature magic course through her body, up from her chest and through her arm out of her fingers. The man stumbles back with a gurgling shriek as his entire torso is engulfed in flame. His companions yell and run for Keyleth, weapons drawn, and she screams, her cry ringing through the clearing as her Thunderwave throws her attackers back. They slam into the trees behind them with sickening thuds and slump to the ground, unmoving.

Keyleth grabs her things and takes off running. She runs for what feels like hours until the shock and the horror catches up with her and she drops to her knees, retching up her meager dinner onto the forest floor. _I can’t do this_ , she thinks, the weight of three deaths pressing on her shaking shoulders. _I can’t do this alone_.

 

* * *

 

When Keyleth is two hundred and twenty-one, she steps out of a tree in the Parchwood surrounding the city of Whitestone. In decades past, she might have chosen the Sun Tree itself as a destination, but these days she tends to prefer being a little less the center of attention. She can’t help but laugh a little at the irony. It’s taken two centuries, but she’s finally learned how to stealth. Pike would laugh, she thinks. She’ll tell Scanlan about it the next time she sees him. They meet every five years or so, the last two members of what used to be Vox Machina. She thinks he’ll probably get a kick out of it.

It’s high summer in the north of Tal’dorei. She makes her way down from the mountainside and into the city to the sounds of wind rustling the trees and insects and birds loudly declaring their joy in the warmth of the sun. The Spire of Conflux makes small indents on the forest floor as she moves, the exalted Vestige serving as her walking stick for the journey. She finds she likes it better in its more humble uses.

Whitestone’s grown since she saw it last. The completion of the skyship dock almost 150 years ago had solidified the city as a hub of trade and commerce, and now it fills nearly the whole valley, industrial, residential and mercantile districts butting against each other, a cosmopolitan marvel built on the bones of the places she knew. The old bakery is long gone, as is the tavern they used to frequent, but the temple to Pelor still stands. So does the temple to Sarenrae. She can see the old structures underneath the new, if she tries. If she concentrates, she can see it as she knew it before, a city still recovering from years of oppression and hardship. It’s thriving now, full of life and light, and she can’t bring herself to regret the change. Or at least, she tries not to. It’s harder some days than others.

She passes people as she makes her way to the city center. It’s a workday, coming on noon, and the streets bustle with vendors peddling their wares, tourists and townsfolk ducking in and out of buildings, young children darting through legs and under tables giggling and shrieking. There’s a vague intention in the flow of people, growing stronger the closer she gets to the center of the city, until she steps out from between two buildings into Dawnfather Square. It’s a bit crowded, but not uncomfortably so, and she’s able to make her way, with little trouble, to the massive tree in the middle.

The Sun Tree’s done well for himself in the past two centuries. He hasn’t grown much, and is unlikely to at his age, but there’s a vitality in his leaves that speaks to the health of the land. Keyleth rests a hand on his trunk and smiles, letting his familiar ancient presence wash over her. She extends her awareness through his roots and branches, out in the ground beneath the city into the fields and forest around it. The past several years have been good to Whitestone, it seems, frequent rains and plentiful harvests. Her Plant Growth and other protective spells from the last time she passed through are holding strong, though the Sun Tree does tell her of a few trees towards the South that are coming down with canker rot. Keyleth makes a note to see to them before it spreads.

She’s drawn from her observation by a swell of noise in the square. The people around the edges are parting for a procession, making its way through the city, the reason why Keyleth found her way to Whitestone on this high summer’s day. Keyleth knows the group started at the temple to Pelor, and will continue through Whitestone, up the mountain and into the castle, ending, as every such procession she’s witnessed has, in the family tombs. She can see the figures in the train now, familiar De Rolo features warring between regal solemnity and grief, as the whole of the city makes way in mourning for their late liegelord.

Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski De Rolo the Fifth. Named for his grandfather, and great-grandfather. It had taken Vex the entirety of her fourth pregnancy to convince Percy to pass his name onto their youngest child, their only son. She remembered hearing them argue about it, how Percy had said it felt too much like self-aggrandizing, trying to memorialize himself for his own sake rather than his heritage. Apparently little Freddie’s eldest daughter had had no such worries when naming her firstborn.

Keyleth could follow the funeral procession. She could slip into the castle, down the long stone halls and winding stairs to the crypt beneath. She could find the resting place of Percival the Fifth, and the Fourth, and all their numerous siblings and spouses. She could find the marker for Lady Cassandra, and Lady Vex’ahlia, and Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski De Rolo the Third.

Instead she closes her eyes, tips her head back and feels the warmth of the sun play across her cheeks. _As long as Whitestone lives_ , she thinks, the bark of the Sun Tree rough under her palms.

_I won’t let you down, my friends. I promise._

 

* * *

 

When Keyleth is somewhere in her seventh century, she slips through an enormous wooden door, careful to close it so that it doesn’t slam behind her. Like most things in Vasselheim, the temple to Sarenrae has remained largely unchanged for the past several hundred years. The rebuilding after the Battle of Ascension allowed the clerics to restore the temple to a glory it hadn’t seen in nearly two millennia. Now the temple to the Everlight stands proud among the other places of worship, the equal to any temple to Bahamut or Kord.

Slowly, Keyleth makes her way toward the altar in the center of the temple. She’s come in the middle of the day, well before evening prayer, so the temple is practically empty. She takes a seat on one of the benches towards the middle of the room. A couple of clerics are holding a hushed conversation on the other side of the altar, and there’s a woman several rows behind Keyleth sitting silently with her head bowed in prayer, but apart from that, she’s alone.

Keyleth doesn’t bow her head. Instead, she looks up at the altar. There’s a figure of a woman on it, almost ten feet tall, arms lifted and head tilted back. She’s fairly nondescript, the artist having chosen not to make her image look too much like any specific person, but there’s something in the tilt of her smile that Keyleth finds achingly familiar. She wonders if the sculptor had taken inspiration from a certain gnommish woman who’d been instrumental in helping the temple to rebuild.

“Beautiful, isn’t She?”

Keyleth starts. The woman who was praying has come to sit beside her. Her brown skin is wrinkled, heaviest around her eyes, and her close-cropped hair holds far more white than black. Her ears are slightly pointed, suggesting elvish descent, but the round openness of her face is entirely human. She nods at the figure on the altar. “Our Lady of the Everlight?”

Keyleth nods. “Yes. Yes, she is beautiful.”

The woman smiles. “Are you a follower of Hers, then?”

Keyleth shakes her head. “No, not really. I knew someone who was, once. A long time ago.” She shrugs. “I guess I just find it… peaceful here. Like it lets me feel close to her. My friend, I mean.”

The woman nods. “There’s some sense in that, I suppose. There’s plenty that come to worship to remember those as have passed on.” She sighs. “I certainly do.”

Keyleth frowns and the woman laughs. “Oh, don’t mind me, dearie. I’m getting maudlin in my old age, is all.” She stretches her arms above her head. Several joints crack audibly. “Anyway, seems there’s less and less point to me trying to commune with the dead. I’ll likely be joining them before the year is out.”

Keyleth looks down at her folded hands. “I’m sorry.”

The woman smiles. “Don’t be.” She reaches over and pats Keyleth’s hands with one of hers. “I’ve lived a good life. Did good as best I was able, raised my babies to do the same. And my wife’s waiting for me on the other side when I go, and that’s not nothing.”

“No,” Keyleth says softly. “It’s not.”

The woman looks at her for a moment, then shakes her head. “Oh, don’t mind me. You’re young enough, you’ve got plenty of life ahead of you. I’m sure you’ve got better things planned than sitting and listening to the ramblings of one old woman.”

If she is part elven, this woman is maybe 200 years old at most. “It’s alright,” Keyleth says. “I don’t mind.”

The woman smiles at her. “Well, thank you kindly.” She pats Keyleth’s hand again and withdraws. “Your friend, the one who was a follower. Would you tell me about her?”

Keyleth smiles. “Yeah. Okay.” She clears her throat. “She lived here in Vasselheim for a while. Her and her brother both.”

The woman smiles. “Her brother?”

“Yeah.” Keyleth grins. “Three times her size and a heart to match.” She laughs. “There was this one time, he decided to fight in the Crucible…”

They sit there for hours as the afternoon light fades overhead. Keyleth tells stories about her friends, and listens to the woman’s stories about hers. It’s lovely, in a way, to remember them here, in this place of light and beauty. To remember the good of them, even after they’re gone.

 _I won’t forget_ , Keyleth thinks, listening to the woman telling the story of how she first met her wife. _Even when it’s hard, even when it hurts-_

 _I’ll remember_.

 

* * *

 

When Keyleth is twenty-six, she slips out of the house and makes her way to the cliff’s edge. All’s quiet in Zephrah, as it has been for months, so she’s undisturbed as she winds her way down from the village to the grassy stretch leading up to the dropoff. She’s barefoot, and the olive green cloth of her skirt brushes against her bare legs as she walks, shifting in the cool night breeze. She walks for a few minutes, until she’s far enough away from the fires and torches that the only light is the stars, and sits on the grassy embankment, tucking her knees up to her chest.

She’s not alone for long. She hears Vax approach before he sits down beside her, which means he’s taking care to make sure he’s heard. He’s shirtless, already in his sleep pants, and barefoot as she is. His toes wriggle in the soft grass. “Hey,” he says.

Keyleth smiles faintly. “Hey.”

“I thought you were coming to bed.”

She shrugs. “I was. I got… distracted.”

His head tilts and his brow furrows. Keyleth sighs. “I was just so busy today, checking on the crop progress and making plans for the Crisis Orbs and everything. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized what day it was.”

Vax scoots closer to her. “I’m assuming you mean more than just the day of the week.”

She nods. “It’s… twenty years ago, today, my mother left on her Aramente.”

He doesn’t say anything. He’s good at that, at knowing when to speak and when she needs to let it out and not be interrupted, and now that he’s here she can’t stop the words from bubbling up from inside her. “I guess I thought I’d’ve found her by now, you know? Especially with- with going to Vesrah, and everything, I thought for _sure_ \- But I didn’t, and I don’t know if I ever will, and, gods, sometimes I wish I knew for certain that she was dead, just so I wouldn’t have to keep wondering, and that’s _awful_ , isn’t it, that’s awful, and I just-”

She chokes on a sob, and Vax is there, pulling her into his arms. She clings to him, letting the tears flow, burying her face in his hair, surely dripping tears on hair and beads and feathers alike. Her fingers brush over the not-quite-healed tattoo on his arm, and she presses her hand against it without thinking, searching for something to ground her.

If Vax is uncomfortable, he doesn’t show it. “It’s alright,” he says, “I’ve got you, it’s alright.” And she knows he doesn’t mean the situation is alright, he’s not an idiot, he knows how fucked up she is about this, but it’s alright for her to cry, it’s alright for her to be angry and sad and hurting. It’s alright for her to be weak and fall apart and not worry about being Headmaster. It’s alright for it to be just the two of them, just them and the grass and the stars.

Eventually, the tears subside. She feels Vax press a kiss to her temple. “What do you need?” he asks.

Keyleth bites her lip. “Can we- can we just sit here? For a while?”

Vax nods. “Sure.” After a moment he shifts, stretching out so he can lay his head in her lap. She sinks her fingers into his hair, letting the feel of the fine strands bring her back to the moment. Vax hums contentedly as she beings to braid. She’s not very good at it, but he’s been teaching her in their down time, and she’s getting better. Really Vax just likes it when she plays with his hair.

“Can I ask-” He starts to speak, tilts his head until he sees her nod before he continues. “Why out here? Why’d you come here?”

Keyleth sighs. “I don’t know, I like-” She pauses, trying to put the words in order before she says them. “I like being able to see the stars, when I’m upset. It makes me feel… small, I guess. Not like in a bad way,” she continues hurriedly when he starts to frown, “more like- There’s _so much world_ out there, stars and planes and- it just makes me feel like whatever I’m upset about isn’t that big of a deal, really. In the end.”

Vax drops his head back to her lap. “I can see that.” He picks at the grass idly, rubbing the blades between his fingers. “Stars were one of the only things I like learning about, back in Syngorn.”

“You had lessons about the stars?”

He nods. “Astronomy. Vex was better at it, all the navigating and triangulating and shit. I just liked the stories.”

Keyleth finishes a braid and starts on another. “What kind of stories?”

He shifts, turning his head to give her better access. “You know, myths, legends. Stories explaining the constellations and why certain stars are only visible certain times of the year, that kind of thing.”

“Tell me one?” She’s not sure why she asks it. Maybe she wants something to take her out of her head, distract her from her still-troubled thoughts. Maybe she wants to explore this side of Vax, hear him talk about something from his time in Syngorn that isn’t tainted with bitterness and resentment and rejection. Maybe she just likes the sound of Vax’s voice.

She watches him consider. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, alright.”

Keyleth waits for him to gather his thoughts. She finishes her second braid and begins tugging at the first one, unraveling it so she can braid it again. Her braids always end up being different sizes from each other, and often lumpy to boot if she doesn’t make the strands equal thicknesses, but Vax doesn’t seem to mind.

“Alright,” Vax says. He’s not looking at her, but at the stars, as though he can see the story unfolding in them as he recites it. “Alright.

“A long, long time ago, there lived an elven woman. A magic user. Some stories say she was a cleric, others a bard or a sorcerer. Whatever kind of power, she had plenty of it. She worked in service to the Moonweaver, the goddess of mischief, and of love. She played tricks on the proud, brought down the mighty and lifted up the weak. The people loved her.

“In her travels, this magician met a woman. A humble farmer. She was passing through her village and she offered to let her stay in her home for the night. When morning came, and the magician prepared to leave, she asked the farmer what she would have in repayment. ‘Nothing,’ the farmer said, ‘for the joy of a good deed is reward enough.’

“The magician offered her endless wealth, and the farmer laughed. ‘What need have I of wealth?’ she asked. ‘I cannot feed my animals with gold, nor water my fields with diamonds. My simple farm is wealth enough.’

“The magician offered her endless power, and the farmer laughed. ‘What need have I of power?’ she asked. ‘To my animals I am a queen, and to my crops I am a god. My simple farm is power enough.’

“The magician offered her her own heart, and the farmer laughed. ‘What need have I of your heart?’ she asked. ‘I cannot own another person’s love, no matter how freely given. To have shared one night in your company is heart enough.’

“And the magician saw the truth in the farmer’s heart, and loved her for it. And she stayed, and they were wed.

“It’s said they lived many years together. The magician turned her power to simple things, and the farmer taught the joys of working the earth. They were happy together, until one day the farmer fell ill, and all the magician’s power couldn’t restore her health, and she died.

“The magician wept and raged, but nothing in her power would bring her wife back from the dead. In her grief, she prayed to the Moonweaver, begging her to give life back to her beloved. But the Moonweaver refused, because she has no power over the workings of life and death. And so great was the magician’s grief that she laid herself down by the body of her wife, and she, too died.

“The Moonweaver mourned, for the magician was her valued servant and very dear to her. So she took the magician and the farmer, and she wove their figures in the stars, so they could watch over Exandria together, for all of time to come. And that’s where those constellations came from.”

Vax’s voice falls still. Keyleth blinks, coming back to herself after being caught up in his words. “That’s so sad.”

Vax shrugs. “It’s elven. Their stories are all sad.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes. When Keyleth speaks again, her voice is so soft even she can barely hear it. “They were happy, though, right?”

Vax tilts his head to look at her. “What?”

She looks up at the stars. “In the story. In the time that they had together. They were happy?”

She feels Vax take her hand in his. When she glances down, he’s looking back up at her. “Yeah,” he says. “They were happy.”

She smiles at him. “Good,” she says.

They stay out there until Vax has fallen asleep with his head in Keyleth’s lap. She brushes the hair away from his face, thumb tracing over the corner of his soft, sleeping smile. Her head tilts back and she gazes up into the vast expanse of stars overhead.

 _Good_ , she thinks. _Good_.

**Author's Note:**

> #thankskeyleth


End file.
